


Earth, Ashes, and Dust

by bazmahtaz



Series: The Jackal [4]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bisexuality, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Major Original Character(s), Multi, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Original Character(s), Polyamory, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smut, Steve Rogers Feels, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:34:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21999049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazmahtaz/pseuds/bazmahtaz
Summary: "Soul of my soul, no word shall be forgot,Nor yet alone, beloved, shall we seeThe desolation of extinguished suns,Nor fear the void wherethro’ our planet runs,For still together shall we go and notFare forth alone to front eternity. "-Sarah Teasdale, Love and death.Half the world is lost. The survivors move on, or don't.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Original Female Character(s), Steve Rogers/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Jackal [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1344763
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays! I've been working on this for about a month now as something to keep my brain and hands busy while I was recovering from a flu born of Satan's own asshole. I'm still editing a bunch of chapters that were written while high as balls on Buckley's, so those will be published when my brain is back in functioning order.

There is a copse of fruiting trees at the edge of a lake, shading the form of a woman's nude body from the beating noontime sun. Around her are corpses, bulky and six limbed and bloated from hours of exposure. 

Steve recognizes the horrific smell of rot before he comes upon her, hunched by the water and swaying with exhaustion. That smell had burned itself into his brain, sharp and sweetly sulphurous when her teeth had sunk into his own arm, it lingers in the air here and turns his stomach, wafting off the alien cadavers. 

"We found him." He says, and the only indication that she's heard him is the tensing of her bronze shoulders. 

He wants so badly to gather her to him, to shield her away from all this, but Bucky was as much hers as he was Steve's, and heartbreak isn't something he can punch or shoot. 

Edith seemed to oscillate between rage and silent despair for the day and a half she was recovering from battle, and then spent the next month siphoning all of that energy into stomping out the remainder of Thanos' army. The Mad Titan had reduced half of all life to clouds of carbon ash with a snap of his fingers, and hadn't discriminated against his own forces. The Jackal had taken care of of what remained of the would-be invaders with a snap of her jaws. 

"In space." She says, not asking. Her voice is rough with exhaustion. "We're going to kill him?"

"And bring everyone back."

She seems to wilt at that, the ends of her hair brushing the bruised jut of an elbow, the elongated and too sharp outline of her ribs. 

Steve hears the rattle in the deep breath she takes, sees the way the raw skin of her knuckles stretches over bone as they clench around nothing. She knows as well as he does that it's a long shot, but Steve has always been stubbornly optimistic, and foolishly devoted to the impossible.

Bucky would have called him an idiot for even entertaining the idea.

Edith goes to stand, and stumbles. Steve is there in an instant, wrapping an arm around her that supports the too meager weight of her body. She feels feverish to the touch, and her eyes are unfocused when she looks at him, the skin of her face still faintly striated with the remains of her feral transformation. She feels taller, still, nearly at height with him as the venom in her blood slowly fades. 

She winces every time something shifts, and once they make it the quarter mile to the jet he watches helplessly while she hisses in pain, her ribs collapsing down like an accordion into their usual shape. 

He wraps her in a blanket, and she cocoons herself in it as she collapses in the co-pilot's seat, toes curling around the edge of the cushion. Her eyes blink slowly against the light.

Edith sleeps, barely, and by the time they're back in New York she's had some semblance of rest and strides into the makeshift War Room wearing one of Steve's Teeshirts, with a pair of his jeans belted high on her waist. He would find it almost attractive if the situation wasn't so somber.

The other occupants of the room say nothing, though Natasha raises an arched brow at him when he follows behind Edith and makes an attempt at getting her to sit down.

She doesn't, waving a hand at the chair he pulls out. Nobody else is sitting, and she's being typically stubborn even though he can see the faint tremor in her leg from having walked as far as the helipad.

He tries not to show his frustration. Listens to the rundown of the plan, and theories about what Thanos could have used the stones for that would have produced this most recent energy burst.

Edith's frown deepens, but she says nothing, and so Steve makes their plans to find Thanos, and the stones, and get everyone back.

"We'll fix this," he says, struggling to find some iota of confidence in his own words. "Whatever it takes."


	2. Coping Mechanisms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Hope", it turns out, is a subjective term.
> 
> Smut and angst for you on this last Sunday of the decade.

The harbor smells like dead fish and salt, and has smelled the same Steve's entire life; but he doesn't think it has ever been this quiet.

Even when he was a kid, the sound of motors and dock workers calling out to each other was copacetic with a twenty-four hour business. Seagulls wailed during the day, wheeling through the sky and floating jauntily between the piers. Now, it's only the gentle slosh of waves against the concrete walls and the occasional rattle of a car in the distance.

It's a strange place for a date, he thinks, but they're strange people. Stranger still for the fact that they're both in full kit and surrounded by three other heavily armed vigilantes, lurking in the shadowy stacks of rusted out shipping containers.

Still, he's happy to be spending any time with Edie. These days they're both so busy with running their respective operations that Steve's lucky if he can get an evening with her every week.

She's warm against his side, leaning close as the silence continues uninterrupted. It's been nearly fifteen minutes since the last sign of activity in the warehouse they're supposed to be raiding, twenty since they heard anything from Jessica.

Steve can't see Edith's face through the tinted visor of her helmet, but he can tell she's getting impatient from the rhythmic flexing of her fingers against the barrel of her gun. It's nearly imperceptible, but Steve's studied her long enough to tell when she's getting anxious. 

He places a hand on her waist and she stills, taking a deep breath and pressing closer for a moment before relaxing. 

It's another several minutes before the com buzzes in his ear, followed by a soft tapping that counts up to sixteen. Fewer than they expected, luckily. The smuggling rings they've been bagging lately have generally consisted of twenty or thirty perps with too many volatile weapons.

Edith taps her own com three times. Incoming.

Steve takes point as he and Edith move from their hiding spot to the unguarded steel door at the side of the warehouse. They wait again for a moment, silent except for the muffled sound of breathing. 

Another series of taps comes through, and Steve kicks in the door, ducking low as Edith aims over his head and shoots a volley of sleep darts into the smoke-filled room. Steve covers them both, blocking the chaotic rain of bullets coming from inside the cloud. A table goes flying past courtesy of Jessica, taking out a man as he runs in their direction with his gun raised. 

The main door turns into a bottleneck, flushing their targets toward Frank and Wade, and from there it's bodies on the floor. 

The pier is silent again within the minute, punctuated by the sound of heavy breathing.

"Well that was  _ fun _ ." Says Wade after a few seconds, and Steve is honestly surprised he'd stayed quiet for as long as he did. "Oh! Jacky, wait, we got a bleeder!" And he skips into the warehouse and crouches next to one of the unconscious men, the one that got hit with the table from the looks of it.

Edie takes a hand away from the seals on her helmet and steps into the space with an irritated sigh. "I said no casualties, guys. I wanted a clean bust."

"I didn't think it would kill him." Jessica shrugs, wandering over to one of the steel tables arranged at the back of the room. They're all covered with bulky, metal devices. Alien tech stolen from government bunkers and salvage sites after the battles in New York and Wakanda. "I just wanted to get him out of the way."

"You threw a table at him!" Wade laughs, and flips the body over. "Oh, he's not dead. He's just  _ mostly _ dead."

There's a chorus of annoyed grumbling from the rest of the team as Wade takes out his pistol and shoots the man point-blank in the skull, causing a splatter of red to explode outward and cover everyone standing close enough to the proverbial Splash Zone. 

" _ Now  _ he's dead."

"I'm gonna make you eat that bullet, Wilson." Edith sighs. She waves Frank over to the tables "See if there's anything we can send to New Asgard. Jess, let the cops know we have fifteen to arrest and one to body bag."

"They're gonna be pissed that you didn't call them first, Jack." Frank says, already tossing various items into a duffel bag. Steve had been more than a little concerned that the guy who had turned up at Edith's bedside back when the Triskellion fell was, in fact, The Punisher; but it of all the people on her ragtag team Frank's proven himself to be the most reliable.

"Let them be pissed." Edith says, "I don't see them bothering to deal with any of this shit." She moves to another table, Steve trailing behind. Her shoulders are tense, meeting her jawline as she studies a few of the objects. Steve steps alongside her, not quite touching but close enough that she can reach him if she needs to.

"You okay?" He asks, just loud enough to be sure she can hear him.

She gives a shallow nod. "Yeah. Just need some fresh air." She continues sorting through the tangle of wires and metal, picking up a piece that looks like it might have come off one of the Helicarriers from back in Washington. She passes it to him and he places it in one of the duffle bags. 

Steve lets his hand brush hers, catching her fingers in his own, squeezing them gently. "Go ahead. I can keep an eye on things for a few."

She squeezes back, then releases him to keep sorting. "I'll be fine. Don't really wanna be alone right now." 

Edith has been holding the leash on all that tightly coiled violence, taking her anger out on New York's criminal underground more and more frequently. She hasn't gone feral, not that he's seen, but her refusal to remove her helmet at any op where she might see or smell blood has become enough of a trend that even her team seems to find it concerning.

It takes less than fifteen minutes for them to collect all the parts they need. Jessica and Frank are sent to meet with their contact from New Asgard, and Wade heads to someplace called Sister Margaret's to do… whatever it is he does when he's not working with Edith.

So that leaves Steve alone with her, as they leave the warehouse and she snaps the seals on her helmet with shaky hands, pulling the thing off and inhaling sharply.

Steve takes the helmet from her, letting her use the moment or two that she needs to center herself. Her hair is slicked back with sweat, pupils like pinpricks. Steve puts a hand on her shoulders to steady her.

"Whole thing reminded me of him." She says, quiet. And Steve takes the extra step and pulls her to his chest, rubbing circles between her shoulder blades. 

She doesn't resist, just falls limply against him, arms dangling at his sides like dead weight. 

"Me too. Been seeing Buck everywhere lately." 

During the war, ops like this were only going well if he  _ didn't _ see Bucky, but afterwards Steve always feels that swoop of disappointment when Buck's not there to take shots at him for all the stupid risks he took. It's been five years, and sometimes he'll see someone who looks vaguely like his best friend walking through Central Park, or hanging out of a Brooklyn window with a cigarette in his mouth. There's always a moment of searing, blinding, hope; followed by the whiplash of grief coming hot on its heels. 

But now its Edie taking risks and Steve trying to keep everyone he cares about alive. He goes to meetings and talks about processing grief and accepting loss but really he's jumping at any meager chance to bring back everyone they've lost. He knows in his gut that there has to be something out there that will fix everything. 

Steve traces her jaw with his thumb, curving his hand against the back of her neck, bringing her close enough that he can tilt his head down and kiss her. Her own arms wrap around him, gripping his hair just on the pleasant side of painful. 

The sense of longing doesn't dull when they're together, Steve feels everything they've lost keenly even when he's holding Edith so close, but the pain seems less intense for a moment. He can forget what should have been, and focus on what is. 

His life, he thinks, is full of should-have-beens. 

He releases her long enough to drive them back to the old firehouse she's set up as her team's base of operations, but they're still in the garage when he pulls her close again. Tasting the flavor of her mint chapstick against his tongue, he presses her against the parked sedan, hands bracketing her waist. 

Edith breathes heavily beneath him, hot puffs of air ghosting across his lips every time they part, her hands roaming over his chest. The suit feels far too tight on him, a thin barrier separating her fingers from his skin, he wants to peel himself out of it and let her touch him with those paint-stained fingers. 

His own hands go to release the seals on her hard suit and she makes a low noise, biting his lip. 

"Steve." She rasps, "bedroom."

He mumbles a negative, pulling the release buckles on both shoulders, and reaching for the ones at her sides with a stubborn kind of determination. "Want you now."

She growls, nails scraping over the vibranium weave of his suit, "We're gonna get caught."

He knows they're risking it but honestly doesn't care. All he can think about is hiking her onto the roof of the car and burying his face between her legs. 

Steve pulls the top half of her armor free, tossing it to the floor and she makes an indignant noise. He's going to be buffing the scratches out of that thing for her in the morning. He unbuckles the tassets at her hips, and they drop away along with the arsenal of guns and knives attached. She's wrapped in only the carbon grey bodysuit now, zipped up to her neck. He pulls at the zipper, kissing her throat as it's exposed, the notch between her collar bones, and just above the edge of the sports bra she wears beneath.

"Steve…" she breathes, her hand gripping his hair. "If we get caught I swear to God-"

He silences her by kissing her again, rougher and sliding his palms inside her suit, under her bra, feeling the perfect handfuls of her breasts and groaning at the contact, even if he can only feel it against his fingers. His thumbs stroke over the hardened shapes of her nipples, and she exhales heavily, sensitive, as he continues to feel her up and kiss her stupid. 

She growls, fingers going over his own, teeth worrying his lower lip. "Bed." She says, firm, "now."

He acquiesces, knowing not to push further than he has. Edie's probably right to not want her team to accidentally get an eyeful when they get back, and the last thing he wants is to undermine her authority with the dangerous crowd she's chosen to work with. He's not sure how she keeps them all in line in the first place.

He hauls her up, hooking her legs over his hips and jogging them up the stairs and through the open door to the immediate left, and kicks the it closed behind them. 

"Just gonna leave my armor down there, huh?"

He dumps her on the bed, one of the few pieces of furniture in the spartan room, and starts unzipping her suit even further with a muffled "mmhmm." As his mouth presses against her breast through the cotton of her bra. 

She lets her head fall back, her hand carding gently over the crown of his head, "Bastard." She mumbles, but relaxes under him, letting him pull the suit off her arms and the bra over her head until shes a map of warm skin for him to explore. Her scars are rough against his lips in places, rises and divots spanning over corded muscle and the soft rise of her belly. He's memorized them now, heard many of their stories, and has found constellations amongst them. 

He envies her a bit for the physical evidence of a life lived, finds the irony that the only scar that's stayed on his body since being given the serum is the one she gave him. The one she doesn't touch.

Bucky, too, had scars that wouldn't heal. And Steve traces those out against Edie's body with a kind of phantom memory against too-small shoulders and violin shaped hips. 

Her heels dig into his back when he pushes her underwear aside and licks into her, slow with the flat of his tongue. She doesn't like direct stimulation, at least not at first, so he contents himself with tracing the damp crease of her folds with gentle laps. He coaxes more of her wetness against his tongue, and steadies her hips with a heavy arm barring across them While she groans and squirms. 

By the time he's finally pressing his tongue into her, and rubbing his thumb over the hood just above, she's breathless and flushed, hips churning. He makes her come like that, squeezing around the curl of his tongue, as she gasps his name and pushes against every point of contact. 

She doesn't release his arm, fingers digging into the pale flesh pressed against her belly, but Steve manages to pull the zippers and buckles of his own suit apart and peel it away from one side, freeing his impatient cock from the confines of its cup and the lower half of the suit. It falls heavy against the softest part of her thigh and he grunts from that barest hint of contact. He's been riled up all week, and having to get dragged out on one of her ops tonight was an unexpected delay his overactive libido did  _ not _ appreciate. 

Pressing into the slippery vice of her makes him swear, earning him a strangled laugh from Edith. He complains about her filthy mouth all the time and his hypocrisy is always met with that same sound, low and too-pleased with herself. 

It makes him rough, another thing she likes, pulling out and pushing back in, hard, stretching her out and turning that laugh into a moan. She drags his head down to kiss her, her teeth worrying his lip and grazing his tongue as he fucks into her, growling. 

There's a heavy throb around him, pulsing and shuddering in synch with the broken shout that he muffles against his mouth. He rides it out, manages to last through the aftershocks of her orgasm before his own rushes through him with a surge of heat. 

He's thankful that Edith enjoys being under him even when his full weight spreads over her, because he can never quite bring himself to move after he's done. He has the presence of mind to shimmy slightly to the side so that she's not quite buried under him this time, and she rewards him by stroking long fingers through his hair as his breathing returns to normal. 

He's sated, for the moment, and able to hear the steady beat of her heart beneath his head as it slows to normal. He dozes in her arms, feeling the soft rise and fall of breath and gentle hands lull him into a semi-conscious haze that feels like heaven to his worn out mind. 

Quietly, Edith says "We need a vacation."

Steve feels himself smile, she's still running fingers over his scalp and he feels as content as a cat in a sunbeam. "Probably." He mumbles "Too bad we're both workaholics."

She makes a noise of agreement "Still… we're always saying no guarantees. Would be nice to get away from everything for a while and just be together." She runs fingers on either side of his ear and he shivers happily.

"Let's try July." He says, kissing her chest lightly, "Unless everything blows up between now and then."

"Your birthday could be a good excuse." Edith agrees, "Fourth of July. I'll have to poke around and find us a cottage or something upstate." 

"A grill on the porch. No internet." He sighs. "Lake front. I want to swim."

She laughs softly "Private beach, then." Edith runs the edge of her nail around the shell of his ear "And a fireplace inside, incase it rains." 

Steve sighs happily, and let's himself pray for some kind of lasting peace.

* * *

Neither of them can afford to ignore phone calls these days, even when they come first thing in the morning on a "day off". 

Steve rolls over to grab his cell off the bedside table while she stuffs her head under the pillow. Frank is running the team this morning and knows better than to call unless shit has hit every fan in a five block radius. Edith is blessedly exempt from leaving the warm cocoon of her blankets.

Steve is nice enough to leave the room with his phone, and she sinks into a doze, drifting in and out of consciousness and feeling a small pang of sadness remembering another morning in another bed, sharing her disdain for Steve's obnoxious ringtone with Bucky.

She dreams he's still here at times. Imagines rolling into his arms when Steve gets out of bed. He used to sleep tucked under her chin, limbs draped heavily around her. Steve would be at her back, his legs tangled with hers. 

She must fall asleep again, because she awakens to the sensation of fingers smoothing hair away from her temple, a press of soft lips against the same. 

"What time s'it?" She croaks, cracking her eyes to see Steve leaning over her, silhouetted against the blade of morning light escaping between the drapes. 

"Eight." Steve says, too quiet.

"Too early." She protests, and his hand squeezes her shoulder, trying to hold her attention.

"Sweetheart, something's happened." He says, and she forces her eyes open, taking a deep breath and sitting up.

"What's up?" She scrubs a hand over her eyes, feeling the weight of sleep weighing her down still. 

"Natasha… she called from headquarters. Apparently Scott Lang showed up." Steve says.

"Remind me who he is?"

"Antman. He helped me get Bucky to Wakanda while you were on ice."

Edith nods, humming in acknowledgement. It's too early to remember details. "So he showed up at headquarters…" she gestures at him to continue.

Steve smiles, "We thought he was snapped, sweetheart."

"Oh! Well…" she musters a drowsy smile "That's amazing. Where was he all this time?"

"That's just it. He was in some kind of… quantum… thing? I'm not clear on the details but the point is that for him it didn't feel like five years. It felt like five hours."

Edith thinks he's trying to tell her something, but she's too out of it to understand. She needs coffee, or another hour of sleep. How is Steve so chirpy when he was up just as late as she was? He'd fucked her through the mattress until it was nearly five in the morning and he's somehow still able to carry a conversation. She'd have paid big money to be able to function on two hours of sleep when she was a jarhead. She'd pay for it now, even, the way her brain seems to be stumbling over something so apparently obvious.

Mercifully, Steve seems to understand that she's struggling, so he finally spells it out for her:

"He thinks we can use the same device to go back. To fix everything."

Go back? In time? Edith furrows her brow. "I don't understand. He experienced time stretching, right? How does that- how would that let people go  _ back _ in time?" Admittedly her knowledge of physics comes from watching  _ Cosmos _ and  _ Interstellar _ . Time dilation is definitely a  _ thing _ , she knows, but moving against the flow of it entirely? It brings to mind Jules Verne's clockwork fantasy machines and men in tinfoil onesies. 

Steve shakes his head, he doesn't know either but people who understand at least some of the science seem to think it's workable and he has this absurdly hopeful look on his face...

"We could bring Bucky back. We could bring everyone back."

It's a cheap shot. A gut punch. And now she's awake enough to feel the sharp throb of pain under her sternum. She's let herself hope before, in the weeks after he'd been snapped. She briefly returned to their cottage in Wakanda and hoped against all logic that he would be there waiting. 

"I… this sounds like a longshot, hun." She says, quiet.

Steve takes her face in both his hands, "So was finding Buck alive when I got out of the ice."

She takes his hands gently, pulling them away. "You know this is different. We watched him die this time." Ash, black as carbon falling away on the breeze. She had been feral at the time, but she can still remember the look in his eyes as their colour faded and vanished into monotone flakes. 

Steve looks like she's just slapped him, his brow furrows, and he sounds almost angry "We can't just give up on half the universe. I said if there was a way we would find it and this is  _ it _ ."

"You can't just-!" She starts, too loud, then holds her head in her hands. She inhales closing her eyes and swallowing heavily "Please, Steve, I know it's hard to accept that he's gone-"

"But there's a chance!" He shouts, she doesn't think he means to, but it snowballs from there.

Edith's whole body tenses like an elastic band ready to snap, any semblance of sleepy contentment gone now. He knows better than this! "I can't hang my hopes up on some goddamn plot to resurrect the dead. How many times have we gone through this? Thanos fucking took whatever chance we had to fix the world with him to the grave. Bucky is dead, Steve, and he's not coming back no matter how much fucking magical space bullshit we throw on his ashes!" 

She has tears on her face by the time she's done ranting. She doesn't want this, doesn't want to fight with him over Bucky's death. It still hurts too close to the surface. She swipes at her eyes, stumbling out of bed and stalking over to her dresser, trying to find something to wear so she can hide this feeling of vulnerability under something. Being naked and angry feels too raw.

She gets dressed clumsily, underwear and a teeshirt and a pair of sweatpants covered in paint stains. She slams the drawers closed and grips the wooden top of the dresser hard enough that her knuckles go white. She hears Steve rise from the bed, walking over to her and taking her wrists in his hands pulling them away. 

"I have to try." He says again. "I wish you would try with me."

Edith chokes on her anger, her wrists flexing in his grip. She has been trying. She's been trying for five years to come to terms with the death of nearly everyone she cared about. Trying to move on. 

She takes a breath. She can't let herself keep being soaked in her trauma. She can't let Steve hurt her like this, over and over.

"I can't do this." She says, and his hands leave her. "I can't keep hoping for a miracle. I can't be with you if you keep dragging me through this emotional minefield."

She doesn't turn around, but she senses him moving away from her. "I can't give up on him, Edie."

"Then I guess…" she sighs, feeling her heart stutter in her chest. "I guess you'll have to give up on me."

She hears the breath leave him in a rush, a word forming in the back of his throat that doesn't make it to his lips. 

He leaves, and the door closes behind him with a soft click


	3. Friends in Low Places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wade Tries to Help.
> 
> CW: body horror, gratuitous violence, cannibalism, disassociation.

Sister Margaret's is a strangely comfortable place to sit and think. Low lighting and high walled booths give her a sense of isolation, and everyone seems to be content to leave her the hell alone. She can't drink her feelings anymore, but the bottle of shitty moonshine burns enough to give her something to focus on that isn't the twisted up ache in her chest every time she accidentally thinks of Steve or Bucky or the mess she's made of her life.

The streets have been fairly clear of any criminal activity that would need her attention, leaving an abnormal gap in her usually busy day-to-day. The rest of the team occupy themselves with catching up on the necessities, groceries and car tune ups and appointments with doctors. Jess visits a friend in Jersey and catches up with a few cases she's been working on the side. Frank takes a couple days to screw around with the transmission on his truck. But for the past five days Edith's been content to stuff herself into a booth at Margaret's and distract herself with the psychoactively ineffective burn of alcohol, and sketching the other occupants of the room with unflattering accuracy. Even the smell of blood here is faint, not enough to make her go feral, but old and stale mixed with fresh in a way she finds mildly inoculating.

Of course, she shouldn't have expected the relative peace to last. Sister Margaret's is Wade's haunt of choice, and while Edith had hoped his current job would keep him occupied for at least a week, she should have known better. Nutcase though he may be, Wade Wilson is still as efficient as they come.

He drops into the booth without warning, stealing the bottle from her hand and lifting his mask to chug it. 

She doesn't take the bait. Just looks over to the bartender- a scruffy looking guy named Weasel- and catches his eye.

There's another bottle in her hand a moment later, and this time when Wade reaches for it she takes the knife out of her holster and skewers his hand to the table. 

"Mother of  _ shit _ !"

"You really shouldn't steal." She says, twisting the cork off her new bottle. It's telling that nobody in the bar even flinches at the show of violence, or Wade's outburst.

"What happened to the no blood thing?!" He pulls the knife out of his flesh with a grunt, flipping the thing over a few times before sliding it back across the table at her. 

"Doesn't work with yours I guess." And it doesn't, really, she can still smell him bleeding, but it's different than the kind that sets her off. More astringent than coppery. It turns her stomach, if she's honest, but that could also be the booze sloshing around in her otherwise empty gut.

"Convenient!"

She gets a whole three and a half seconds of silence before-

"Whatcha doing?"

She gives him a look. His suit is burnt up in places and riddled with holes. There's a janky little happy face cut into the left side of his suit that goes straight through to the meat of his chest, still bleeding. He must have come straight from work. 

"Wondering who pays your laundry bill." 

The mask seems to squint at her, and she goes back to idly sketching one of the larger patrons, a mountain of a man sipping his beer and fiddling with a cellphone that looks tiny in his meaty palm. 

"I heard about you and Major Spangles."

Edith grits her teeth, glaring at him. Of course he heard. She has a team whose sole purpose in life is to gossip about hers. 

He grins, lips cracking and gums bleeding "Do you wanna fuck-"

She picks up the knife, a warning in her voice "Wade."

The delay is deliberate, and she's pissed that she fell for it "-up some assholes." He finishes He pushes the hand with the knife down. "A little birdie told me that one of the cops from our little soiree last week up and resold some of the tech we handed over." 

She drops the pencil and leans back, arms crossing. "Didn't we run the entire precinct through Micro before we picked it for the handoff?" She remembers asking the reclusive hacker to do a monthly checkup on the staff in three of the local police stations to get an idea of which ones she could more or less trust. He'd given her the all clear this month. Serves her fucking right for not doing the handoff herself.

Wade picks up the pencil and drags her sketchbook across the table, doodling in an unused corner of her current page. "They got sent to a different depot in Manhattan."

"Fucking perfect." She sighs. "Any clue if he's got a buyer yet?" She thinks he's drawing a cartoony version of the two of them fighting a bear. It's hard to tell from upside down. 

"Yep! Tonight in Midtown, and it's someone  _ super _ shady." He looks up from his drawing. "Do you have any red?" 

She rolls her eyes and passes him a red pen from her case. "Fucking cockroaches. Three and a half billion people drop dead and somehow these idiots survive."

Edith takes another swig of moonshine. She definitely needs to find something else to occupy herself with, and Wade is literally dropping this in her lap. 

"Yeah." She says. "Okay."

He gasps, delighted, "Really?! Oh, Jacky you've made me the happiest girl in the whole wide world!"

Edith sighs into the bottle.

* * *

Wade drags her out to a filthy, Midtown, construction site. Some abandoned condominium project that went defunct after the snap eliminated the need for new housing. The whole place is a mass of rusted I beams and crumbling, graffiti-stained concrete that smells of old piss and older beer. 

There are pigeons  _ everywhere _ .

Edith has to turn off the HUD on her helmet to stop the constant heat readings the goddamned birds are throwing off. The program keeps glitching and reading them as fat, winged, shit missiles. 

Wade, predictably, chooses a popular nesting area on the fourth floor for them to wait. The buyer arranges most of his deals here in the early afternoon, and sure enough a black van drives up to the fenced perimeter just after twelve.

A ski-mask wearing passenger gets out, unlocks the sliding metal gate, and waves the driver through. 

Below their hiding place, Edith watches what looks like a skinny teenage boy slink out from behind a concrete barrier holding something heavy wrapped in a trash bag. The object is about the size of her arm, from the looks of it. Larger on one side than the other. The kid is holding it awkwardly, arms around the wider bottom while the top leans against his shoulder. 

"That's our little shithead!" Wade stage-whispers. "Awww, he thinks he's big time!"

"These other guys might be." She says, pulling up her rifle and looking down the scope at the tinted windows and trying to count shadows. "That van looks full. Seven guys including the driver? That's a lot of bodies for a trade off."

"Maybe they're having an orgy after. You don't know how they live their lives."

The van trundles up to the front of the building, concealed from the road by a broken down cement truck opposite Edith and Wade's vantage point. The kid, clutching his garbage bag, stops a few yards from the doors as they open. 

Six masked thugs with guns step out, joined by their gate-opening compatriot. One, slightly rounder than the others and wearing a messenger bag, begins talking to the idiot with the trash bag, loud enough that she can pick up the gist of the deal.

Kid gets tech. Gang brings cash. No questions, or kneecaps get broken. Edith thinks the aggressive mobster schtick is a bit much, but apparently it works on the kid because he nods like an oversized bobble head and starts peeling back the garbage bag to reveal a thick metal rod with a domed base.

Wade gasps. "The gangs are trading in sex toys now?!"

The thing does look  _ incredibly _ phallic. 

Edith turns her HUD back on, trying to scan the tech through the interference. It's some kind of superconductive alloy shell with a core that seems to contain trace amounts of a radioactive material along with another particle the scan can't identify. If it  _ is _ a dildo, whoever was using it is probably very, very dead.

Wade shimmies away from the overlook, hopping down the unfinished stairwell with all the subtlety of a jackhammer. His footsteps echo on the metal steps loud enough that by the time he reaches the ground he's being stared at by everyone present.

"I'm in the market for a really big vibrator." He says, voice pitched so she can hear. "I heard one of you had one for sale. Gently used?"

There's a chorus of angry noise from below, and guns being cocked and trained on Wade. Edith just sighs and aims for the guy with the briefcase. Wade will motor-mouth his way to an advantageous position and hopefully give her room to work without accidentally tagging him. 

Except the ski-mask wearing idiots are smarter than most and start shooting before Wade can say much. The noise is enough to startle the nesting pigeons into a swarm of cooing, flapping, chaos. 

She can't see anything beyond the panicked birds, and she can't fire blind without risking collateral damage or exposing her position. Making everything worse is the fact that her HUD is still on and blaring warnings at her in neon orange flashes. 

She reaches for the sensor on her helmet, feeling around to try and switch to analogue, and in the brief moment it takes to reorient herself and get a visual back there's a deafening boom of gunfire and her visor blooms with a web of iridescent cracks. 

She's effectively blind on her left side, and she has to compensate by moving her sniper rifle and refocusing it with her right eye. Wade is slicing his way out of a kill box, but the big fucker with the briefcase has spotted her and is opening fire with a semi-automatic. Another bullet bounces off her pauldron, shifting her aim away from him. The bullet cracks uselessly against the concrete beside him, and she curses, compensating again. 

The movement, subtle as it is, lifts her head just a hair too high above the concrete ledge. Her helmet saves her from immediate death, but the side of it blows open and lets in a flood of unfiltered sound and cool fall air.

The scent of blood hits her like a freight train, and she convulses, reaching for her helmet and trying to cover the opening with desperate hands. The smell, the coppery, thick, essence of wounded prey still finds its way through, and she scrabbles against the seals, yanking the helmet away and covering her nose and mouth with aching fingers. 

She feels the boiling, aching, ecstacy pulse through her like an earthquake beneath her flesh, her vision dancing with bright white sparks that cause the colours around her to blink brighter and hotter. Bright violets and deep reds bringing a riot of nuance to her brain's colour palate. She feels the air forcing its way into her lungs, her body arching backwards with the force of her inhalation. Her hands are useless, scratching against the concrete for something to hold onto. 

There's pain, so much that she thinks her body is being torn apart. Her flesh burns and stings and her bones snap apart like twigs as they stretch and change inside her. She must scream, there's too much of her and not enough all at once and screaming seems like the only thing she can do to release that mounting pressure behind her ribs. 

Instinct seizes her, warring briefly with the terrified woman inside before shutting her away and succumbing to the sudden twist of starvation in her belly

Hungry. She's so hungry. It hurts to be this empty. 

She slinks down from her perch, claws giving her purchase on stone as she winds her way to the cluster of warm bodies below. Their bullets sting, and she growls low in her chest, watching them freeze in front of her at the sound like frightened deer. 

She presses one of them into the ground, claws spanning his chest as she bites into the meat of his shoulder. The screaming is loud in her ear, and she shakes him to make it stop, jaws gripping hard as she thrashes her head. She feels a bright pain against the side of her head and neck, his arm beating her with something sharp and metal until she shakes him again and he goes limp in her grasp. 

There's another sting against her shoulder, but she pays it no mind as she tears away a limb and swallows it down, feeling it liquefy in her mouth and throat. Bones snap between her teeth and flood her tongue with the flavour of blood and marrow, and she feels sated and warm in a way she could never describe. 

Tired, as well, and she decides to drag her kill back to her hiding place. High up and sheltered from the rain that will soon fall, safe from more stinging attacks and the cooling air.

She climbs up, higher than before, to a smaller crevice than the one she had previously been. This one blocks the wind, and smells less like bird feces. She thinks she could fill it with warm, soft things and sleep for a long time here. 

She could sleep now. Her eyes feel heavy, and her limbs weaken as she curls in a far corner with her kill. She's still hungry, but the urge is distant now, secondary to rest. 

She rests her head on top of the dead man, eyes drooping, and feels her consciousness shrink to a point before vanishing entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hannibal lecter noises*


	4. Old Habits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Natasha Romanoff sees all.

Steve doesn't have time to mope, and he thanks Natasha for her foresight on the matter.

He doesn't even tell her about the breakup, she just  _ knows _ , somehow, and packs his schedule full of the most exhausting, mentally challenging tasks she thinks he can handle. Moving sensitive equipment to their testing area, running missions on the West coast, meeting with Tony, and then Bruce to figure out how exactly to apply Scott's theory and Hank Pym's recovered research.

Tony, like Edith, doesn't want to risk what he has on a chance to bring back what they've lost, but Bruce says he'll help once he's finished up with a project that's closely related to his current field of research, whatever that means. Steve doesn't think whatever it is could be more important than fixing the universe. Bruce just shrugs and gives him a look like he knows something Steve doesn't.

Which, granted, he usually does.

Clint is still AWOL but Nat says she has an idea where he is and what he's been doing, and none of it is exactly good news. She wants backup, and the only other person available who could be described as being somewhat close to Clint is Steve…

Which is how Steve ends up following her around a mall in Akihabara while they wait for the mysterious "Ronin" to strike again. 

"I need a new raincoat." She says, thumbing through a rack of clothing in a shop where nothing comes in his size. "What do you think?"

"Its black." He replies, because it is, and because his fashion sense is limited beyond jeans and tee shirts and the odd button up that never seems to fit him right.

Nat smiles, "It is, in fact, black." She says, and drapes it over her arm. She moves to another rack, perusing the various scarves there. "So, is the beard back to stay? Or….?"

Steve scratches his chin thoughtfully. He doesn't know what it is about a bad mood making him not want to shave, but his chin is probably getting a bit bushy. He's starting to look like a hipster, and it makes him cringe if he thinks about it too long.

"I'm gonna trim it down. I've just been busy."

"I know how busy you are." She says, "And it's not too busy to practice basic personal grooming."

"I've been lazy, then." He says. Steve can sense where she's going with this and he doesn't like it one bit. "It's not a big deal."

Natasha gives him a withering look, passing money to the shop keeper and thanking them when she's handed a bag with her raincoat folded neatly inside. "If I don't give you fifty things to do in a day, you stand around staring into space and looking like a kicked puppy."

He thinks he should be offended by that, but thinking back on the past couple of weeks, she's not wrong. Part of the reason he's so thankful for the distractions she's stuffed his schedule with is that they reduce the amount of time he can spend stuck in his own head, replaying that awful conversation over and over and over…

His room at the compound is filled with little reminders. He's put things of hers away, in a box in the back of his closet, but that doesn't stop him from noticing things like the fact that he subconsciously leaves space on the right side of his bed or the way the towels are still folded from the last time she was there and did his laundry as a surprise. 

The smell of oranges still makes him look for amber skin and black hair.

He and Natasha continue on through the brightly lit shopping center in relative silence, a few more stores pulling Natasha's interest. He trails after her into a jewelry store, surrounded on all sides by glittering stones in pristine glass cases. Natasha has the shop keeper pull up a tray of cheaper rings, gold plated with cubic zirconia, and she's trying a few on when she finally asks:

"So what happened?"

Steve sighs. He doesn't want to talk about this. Not here. Especially not surrounded by rings. Nat is like a dog with a bone though, and she's given him this long without bothering him about it. He supposes he should at least give her this much, if only to get her off his back for a while. 

"She got angry. She told me to leave, so I left."

Natasha says something the the clerk in Japanese and tries a different, more subtle, silver and amethyst ring that Steve thinks looks much nicer on her than the gold. She turns her attention back to him, sounding dubious. "Must have been some fight."

Steve frowns, "Not… It was less of a fight and more… I don't know. She was so upset that I wanted to keep trying to bring everyone back. Said I needed to move on." He scrubs a hand through his hair. "Said it was her or this."

"No she didn't." Nat singsongs, returning the rings and walking to another case. 

Steve's frown turns into a scowl. "You weren't there."

She makes a sound, agreeing, "I wasn't. And I don't know Edith as well as I would like, but I know you pretty well." Natasha's attention is now on a collection of bands in tungsten, with katakana etched into the outside. "And you do love an ultimatum."

"That's not fair, Nat."

"None of this is fair, but I can understand why she would be upset. You chose your dead lover over your living one." The look she gives him is pointed, and he has a moment of realization that it's not just Steve she's irritated with.

He had never been exactly sure about Nat and Clint's relationship. At first he had assumed they were  _ together _ and then the whole thing with Bruce, and Clint's family and that strange little interlude where he thought she might have had a thing for Sam.

The reality was a little more complicated, apparently. 

"Shit." He says. 

Natasha nods with a look of exasperated relief that he finally understands. 

Edith wasn't trying to push him away. She wanted him to stay, she just wanted space to grieve for Bucky as well. It wasn't an ultimatum. Edith just wanted to have her boundaries respected. She wanted to heal.

He could have done this and still given her that.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me, Steve, I'm just the messenger." She shakes her head, turning back to the jewelry case. 

Steve wants to beat his head against a wall. He pulls out his phone and types a message, deletes it, types it again…

"What do I say?" He whines.

Natasha huffs a laugh. "I'm sorry I'm an idiot? Please take me back? I promise I'll buy you flowers and the newest most powerful guns money can buy? I don't know, Steve, Edith isn't exactly an open book."

He groans, head hanging, trying to figure out the best way to clean up his own mess. 

She's probably blocked his number.

She probably hates him.

_ 19:57 from You _

_ "Hey, I know this is awkward, but can we talk?" _

He hits send before he can second (or third, or fourth,) guess himself. And Natasha looks at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Should I have called?"

Her lips quirk in a half smile, and she says nothing.

Steve fights the urge to lay down on the shiny wood floor and die.

* * *

The jet pilots itself, so Steve has no excuse for staying awake all night in the cockpit staring at the barely-shifting horizon. 

Natasha ended up approaching Clint by herself, deciding he would respond better that way, and she must have been right because he's with them, flying back to the States with a new haircut and tattoos. The most he says to Steve before wandering to one of the uncomfortable bunks in the back is a rough "Hey, Cap."

Steve can't say he blames him.

Two days since his text and his phone still hasn't so much as twitched in his hand. Granted, they've been over the Pacific for the past several hours, but Steve doesn't suspect he'll have anything to read once they reach land either. 

So he sulks and watches the world go by from thirty thousand feet, thinking he should be occupying himself with something productive but knowing there's nothing that actually needs doing and not really wanting to do anything else.

He nearly hits the roof when his phone goes off, dangling from his fingers and then clattering to the metal floor. He scrambles to pick it up again, to flip it right side up and read the glowing 'one new message' notification on his screen.

_ 05:14 from B. Banner _

_ "Bringing equipment on Monday evening. Already have help so don't worry. See you then." _

Steve's disappointment settles in his gut like a lead weight. He knew it wouldn't be her but still…

_ 05:15 from You _

_ "Thanks. I'll let Nat know. See you Monday." _

He puts his phone in one of the cupholders, facing away from his line of sight. He should sleep. 

He stares out at the approaching shoreline instead.


	5. New Age Wisdom

Wade yanks the bandage off her face with zero preamble. It stings, and she resists the urge to press her fingers to the wound by cussing.

"You're almost as pretty as me." He says, dabbing some kind of antiseptic under her eye. "Though this is a bit more anime badass instead of Liefeld wet dream."

Edith grunts, her muscles twitching beneath his finger. He doesn't bother even trying to be gentle about it and she's more than a little grateful for that. She'd managed to keep her face free of scars throughout her entire military career  _ and _ her time loosely associating with the Avengers, but all it took was one trigger happy idiot to give her a great big one from temple to jaw. 

She's not usually vain, but she's feeling it now. She'd kind of enjoyed the fact that she'd managed to keep her face fairly symmetrical through three broken noses and an ill advised and quickly removed eyebrow piercing. She's under no illusions that the scar adds any character, either. 

The metal of her helmet had ripped across the side of her face, and then the whole wound had been made worse by the guy who had used a chunk of rebar to beat that same side of her head as she'd chewed him up.. 

She'd be angry at the guy, but she spent several hours coming down from her feral form, vomiting up foamy blood that wasn't hers. She still feels queasy and terrified when she thinks about it. She's still chewing on calcium tablets to try and calm the sharp tang of acid fighting it's way up her throat every time she moves too fast. 

"We would make the most fucked up looking babies." Wade says in a too-loud imitation of a stage whisper when she's been quiet for more than a handful of minutes.

"I'm going to throw this heavy-ass book at you if you don't quit it." 

Edith knows Wade's hovering and prodding and his general bad sense of humour is how he shows concern, but right now she just wants silence.

She needs to focus if she's going to understand anything in this giant goddamned tome Bruce handed her.  _ 'Quantum particle applications in gravitational wave distortions.'  _ Headlining the section he's bookmarked for her. It's far preferable to focusing on the fact that she probably still has pieces of liquefied human in her digestive system...

So far, she's picked up a bit about microscopic wormholes and particulate antimatter that reduces the distance between atoms and the two maybe having some kind of applicable relationship under very specific circumstances. 

And she only understands  _ that _ much because of a literal children's primer on particle physics she downloaded in an effort to be of some use to the Good Doctor Banner while she's stuck imposing on his good will. Edie hates feeling useless, and considering what she's asking Bruce to help her with...

Wade doesn't seem to have the same compunction. He's finished playing nurse and now he's got his boots up on her borrowed bed, turning his limited attention to picking at the corner of Bruce's guest bedroom wallpaper, flicking the edge of it to some rhythm he's come up with in his head.

He's at it for a solid minute. Then two… Three.

"Okay seriously just go and get me a coffee if you're so annoyed by the decorating."

"It's Damask! In 2023!" Wade says, aghast. 

"No coffee!" Calls Bruce from down the hall. "It'll change your results!"

Edith slumps against the pillow as he crouches through the doorway. She'd woken up to this weird half-Bruce-half-Hulk face staring down at her and she'd nearly slugged him. 

Or rather, she  _ had _ slugged him, but it had done exactly nothing and he just gently returned her arm to the blanket and started talking in a much less  _ Smash-y _ way than he generally did when he was this particular shade of chartreuse.

It's still extremely unnerving.

Edith seriously doubts it will stop being unnerving anytime soon.

"I've narrowed it down, by the way." He says, lumbering over to the tray of tools and pulling up a blood draw kit. He passes it to her, somehow remembering that she prefers doing anything with a needle herself, and she begins the process of wrapping the elastic around her bicep. "It's a hormonal trigger, similar to mine but more specific. I'm trying to figure out which sub group applies."

Edith nods "So it's something that we could turn off?"

He makes a considering noise and waggles an enormous hand at her. "Hormonal therapy tends to not be an effective solution for people with the meta gene."

"Oh yeah, made me  _ way _ worse." Wade says. 

She cringes. She can imagine worse, and she doesn't like it at all. She finishes filling a third vial and Bruce nods, passing her a bandage which she waves away. "A better helmet, then."

"Well…" Bruce starts, "There could be a significant psychological component."

"I'm sure picking apart my mental health these days would be super fun and all…" she says "But finding a therapist with a waitlist less than a decade long is basically impossible."

She knows. She tried.

Bruce collects her vials in a little tray, passes her another to fill with spit. "We could try meditation?" 

She frowns. Spits into the tube.

Bruce shrugs "I'll get these looked at and be back in a bit. Think about it?" He stoops through the door, back down the hall to the lab. 

Edith sighs heavily through her nose, and tilts her head to stare at the monitor tracking her vitals. Her blood pressure is elevated. Glaring at the numbers picked out in digitized green and blue does nothing to make them change. 

"For the record." Wade says, sounding more serious than she expects "I think the Jolly Green Giant is right." 

Her eyes slide to his masked face. Glare unchanged. "You're not exactly the poster boy for introspection, Wilson."

He laughs. "Nope. I got too much of my inside on the outside already. Don't need it." He prods her forehead hard with a scratchy index finger, "You do. You're all boxed up. You gotta open the boxes sometimes."

"I can't tell if you just said that with a straight face or not."

He pauses. Thinking. Wade reaches for the neck of his mask and pulls, lifting the thing up to show his full face.

She's seen him twice without it since his transformation, seen the lower half of his face whenever he's deigned to eat or drink in her presence, but it still shocks her. She remembers the attractive marine who used to sleep his way around the barracks like a damned prodigy, throwing "don't ask don't tell" out the proverbial window. She knows the mutation has changed him, not just physically, he's become unhinged in a lot of ways, and antisocial. 

"You're one of the few people who gives a shit." He says, and she has no doubt that he's serious now, the set of his jaw and the fixation in his bloodshot blue eyes says as much. "Me, n' Frank, even Jess… We're all damaged goods. You see that. You don't judge us for it. So I want you to take care of yourself so I can keep giving  _ you _ shit for a long time coming." He looks at her dead in the eye, then leans in and kisses her forehead with an unexpected tenderness. "Air out your box, sister."

Edith stares at him for a long minute. Mouth a thin line. 

He stares back.

And, all at once, they both crack up laughing.

* * *

Bruce is kind enough to keep her updated, texting her every time a result comes back and continually reminding her that he can't paint the whole picture without all of them. So far, though, she's learned that her cortisol levels are lower than normal, while most of the hormones associated with aggression and sex were high immediately after returning to her usual shape, returning to normal after a few hours. 

_ 22:10 from You _

_ "No offense, Doc, but I probably could have guessed that." _

_ 22:10 from Banner _

_ "Maybe. It explains a lot though. Also means hormone therapy is out." _

_ 22:11 from You _

_ "Weren't Hormones already out?" _

_ 22:12 from Banner _

_ "Now they're especially out." _

_ 22:12 from Banner _

_ "On the bright side, I've discovered you're immune to prion diseases! :)" _

Given her preferred diet while feral, Edith figures being immune to a group of diseases made famous by one contracted from consuming human grey matter is probably for the best. Still, she wishes she had a solution to her actual problem instead of a hypothetical one.

She sighs to herself, sounding too much like some kind of wistful Disney princess, and decides she needs to eat her feelings like a normal, emotionally stunted millennial woman.

She shuffles down the hall in her slippers and an oversized Quantico shirt, the kitchen lit up at the very end in an effort to stop any of them falling through the nearby hole into the garage below. Edie thinks the bright red fire pole in the middle of it would be enough of a hint, even silhouetted in the dark, but someone has taken the liberty to include a piece of paper taped to the thing with the word "DON'T" written across it in bold permanent marker, underlining the word twice for further emphasis.

"Nice undies" comes a voice from the couch on the other side of the kitchen. 

"Nice… Jeff Probst? Is Survivor still a thing?" 

Jessica shrugs, "I haven't been paying attention, just needed some background noise." 

Edie looks at the tv, wreathed with wires from the complex tangle of video game consoles and computer towers jacked into the thing, Jeff Probst is making a bunch of people in bandanas eat bugs so… 

"I wanted to eat my feelings, but I might be good now."

"Huh?" Jessica looks up from the pile of papers taking over the coffee table. "Gross. Change it. There's cinnabon you can heat up."

Edith does. Switching to a slightly more palatable but no less inane reality show with a half dozen young people sitting in a hot tub.

There is, in fact, cinnabon in the fridge. There's also chocolate milk.

She takes a seat at the other end of the couch, food between her crossed legs, and tries not to wince when she has trouble opening her mouth wide enough to stuff her snack inside. Her face still fucking hurts. And while she's not wearing a bandage anymore it still feels like her cheek is trying to split open. She's lucky her bones are nigh-unbreakable. 

"What feelings are we eating tonight?" Jessica says, moving some papers around, changing their order and looking pensive.

Edith hums around her bite, considering. "Depression. Mostly." She says. "Bunch of self pity. Some existential dread…"

Jessica huffs "I'd say that calls for getting wine drunk, but…"

"Mmm delicious self pity." Edith takes another too-large bite and tastes blood along with cinnamon and frosting. "Tell me I didn't just fuck up my stitches."

Jessica looks, grabs her by the chin and tilts her head down. "Nope. Just oozing a little. I assume that's normal."

Edith uses the blade of her butter knife as a mirror, checking it herself. 

The wound is still healing, and the stitches have been out for over a day, but the skin looks raw and a little wet from the antiseptic gel she's been instructed to apply religiously. She hates it. Hates having an angry red line traveling over her brow, around her temple, over her cheekbone and below. The knife warps the reflection like a funhouse mirror, making the scar look even longer and more unpleasant. 

Jessica takes the knife from her hand and skewers a chunk of cinnamon bun with it, shoving it into her own mouth. "Is this just body image depression or are we still dealing with breakup depression too?"

Edith sighs. Shrugs. If she's honest it all blends together right now. She's pissed about Steve, about her chopped up face, and the fact that at any moment she could lose control and turn into a literal monster. She still isn't over losing Bucky, or Sam, or her parents. She's barely sleeping and when she does sleep her brain cycles through a roulette of fucked up bullshit that either scares her while she's still asleep or leaves her furious that she's been woken up.

The sex dreams are, definitely, the worst. Whenever they involve Bucky or Steve she wakes up horny and angry about it. 

"It's a lot of things." She finally replies. "Mostly I just keep wishing I knew how to fix myself. I spent months thinking I was going to die and then when I didn't I just…"

She shrugs again. 

"You didn't have a contingency plan for still being alive." Jessica finishes for her.

"Yeah. I guess." Edith has always been a tactician. She's always been able to assess the situation and make the most of it, forging a path made easy through the application of creative thinking. She had been so close to death, all her plans had put her at its doorstep with her hand on the knob, twisting, and yet she'd still woken up. Her carefully crafted plans replaced by a gaping unknown. The instability had nearly killed her too. 

"Fucked if I know how to solve that problem." Jessica says. "But I get it. And if you need to vent or something I can listen, or we can go punch things until you feel better." 

"I might take you up on that sometime." Edith says, a soft puff of laughter punctuating it. 


	6. Slow to Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit shorter than usual, but it didn't make sense to lump this in with much else.
> 
> I'm sure you'll agree ;p

Bruce's lab takes up his entire master bedroom, including the ensuite and closet. Mercifully, he only needs to pack up half of it. 

Edith is used to the delicate business of packing and moving weapons and art supplies, and it seemed to translate well to scientific equipment. The boxes all pack neatly into a cube van and she drives it from Mt. Vernon to the Avengers headquarters with Bruce taking up part of the cargo and insisting he's fine every time she stops to check on him.

Natasha greets her at the door, eyes flicking briefly to Edith's new scar, and then raising an eyebrow when Edith pops open the back of the van and Bruce ambles out, unfurling to his oversized height and stretching with a tired groan. 

"He said he was fine." Edith offers, and Natasha gives an amused half-smile in Bruce's direction.

"Don't they always." She looks back to Edith "So you've changed your mind?"

She frowns. "I can't hang my hopes on a long shot." She says, walking back to the rolling door and pushing it the rest of the way up. "I owed Bruce a favor, so I'm here. Beyond that?" Edith pulls the ramp down the back of the van, grabbing the dolly that came with the rental. "I'll be heading back to the city tonight."

Natasha regards her, not for the first time, like she knows way more than she's letting on, and Edith wonders just how much Bruce has told her. 

She loads the dolly, ignoring the eyes on the back of her head even as Natasha strikes up a conversation with Bruce about this and that research pertaining to the whole time travel plan. Edith just tunes it out and rolls the first heap of equipment into the hangar they're using for the project. 

There's already a bunch of cables and computers laid out around the room, and the Quinjet and Milano are absent from their usual homes. It's quiet, other than the echo of birds and other outside noise throughout the space. 

The coffee pot is full, and she decides she's been here enough times to be entitled to a cup while she's, technically, working. She nabs one of the clean ceramic mugs from the tray and dumps a few spoonfuls of sugar in before pouring, the steam smelling of that hazelnut blend she always associates with Steve. Figures it would be here, too. She takes a scalding sip, swallowing around the burn and letting the ceramic warm her palms. 

"Edith?"

She nearly drops the coffee, manages to slosh some down the front of her shirt. Goddammit, why does she drink this shit so hot? "Fuck. Ow!" 

"Sorry!" There's a tea towel being shoved against her scalded chest and she's cursing and batting hands away from her and trying to balance the coffee in one hand without burning herself even more. She manages to get it to the counter and dab away the worst of the mess from her chin and neck and cleavage. 

Steve is looking at her like he's not entirely sure she's there. Hopeful and sad and confused, and then his eyes fall on the side of her face and the stupid scar and his brows knit together in concern.

"What happened?"

She tosses the towel next to her cup. "Job hazard." She says. "Other guy looks worse."

"Edie." He chides. "Why didn't you call? We could have used the cradle."

She had been a little preoccupied with her body vomiting out the entirety of every meal she'd eaten in the last twenty years and waiting for her bones to crack and split and resew themselves back into something human shaped. She's not going to tell him that, though. Steve made his choice. 

"Because my marks don't usually care how pretty I am." She replies, obtuse, and his jaw flexes with irritation. He's looking her over a lot more thoroughly now, scanning for more injuries they no doubt could have fixed if they had shoved her warped body into the goddamned miracle casket. She turns away, stalking over to the boxes and beginning to unload them from the dolly. 

"I tried to call." He says at her back. "And text."

Her phone has been off for two days. Frank has been handling everything while she's been recovering and she didn't want to be tempted to text Steve in the first place. 

"I've been busy."

"Obviously." He sounds exasperated. Good. Maybe he'll leave her be so she can unload the stupid truck and drive back to her job in stupid New York. 

She goes to grab another box only to have it taken from her hands as soon as they land on it. Steve is looking at her and she feels her heart twist in her chest at how goddamned hurt he looks. 

"Stop ignoring me."

"I wouldn't have to ignore you if you weren't in my way."

"I wouldn't have to get in your way if you weren't ignoring me."

"Steve, I swear to christ, I am on my last goddamn nerve today and if you don't step off I will step the fuck on." She goes to take the box, and he steps back with it, contents jangling dangerously. He's staring at her, jaw set, eyes determined. "Give me the fucking box, Steve."

"Talk to me."

"The box. Now."

"Talk. To. Me."

Her fist clenches, and she feels everything in her body tense. He can't leave anything alone, can he? He has to poke and prod and bother until he gets bit in the ass and Edith is so fucking tired of it.

Her reflexes are faster than his, not by much, but enough that she knows her advantage when she sees it. It's easy to test him with an open handed push to one of his shoulders and a sweep of her metal leg against his opposite side. Steve isn't expecting her to actually do anything, despite her warning, and he's always been easy to unbalance when they've sparred together. Too top heavy with those huge shoulders, is center of gravity falls a lot higher than her own and he topples backwards, barely maintaining his hold on the box.

"Really?!" He says, still disbelieving, and she aims another kick to his chest which he catches, yanking her leg to the side and making her fall into a roll, twisting free to regain her footing in a low crouch.

He sets the box down, standing, and starts walking toward her with his palms out like he's trying to calm an animal and isn't that just fucking  _ perfect _ ? 

She slaps one away as he reaches toward her, sidestepping a grab she sees coming from a mile off and using the arm to yank him off balance again, twisting his whole body to the side as she boots one of his knees into a bend and he falls awkwardly. 

"You wanna be a goddamn pest or you wanna fucking go?" She barks, and there's a flash of something in his eyes as he stands again. 

"I'm sorry I left." He says, too calm, and she snarls back at him.

"You're sorry you- Could you be  _ any _ fucking thicker?!" She lunges again and this time he catches one of her arms around the bicep and hooks his elbow under her armpit so she has to use her legs to swing up and brace against his hips, pitching herself up and forward until he staggers back and loses his grip with his elbow. She tilts sideways pulling him awkwardly off balance again and sending them both to the floor. From there she gets a leg around his neck, pulling his arm up and back with one hand pressed into his elbow while the other is locked down by her other leg. "You picked a fucking fantasy over me and you're sorry you  _ left _ ?!"

"Not a fantasy" he wheezes, and she slackens the hold of her leg to give him more air. She's present enough to know she doesn't want him to pass out. "It'll work." 

"Like going into space and hunting down Thanos worked? Like sending a couple of aliens out to hunt down some other wish-granting bullshit worked?" She gives a harsh cough of laughter, face feeling hot with her anger. "He's dead. I watched him fucking die, I was right next to you and the last thing he looked at was my terrifying, feral fucking face before he turned to dust." 

She realises she's crying and she releases Steve, scrambling backwards as he gets up. She doesn't want this right now. She doesn't want to do this. The tears burn against her eyes and more so against the ragged edge of the scar. 

"I know." He breathes, not getting off his knees, just kneeling on the ground a few feet away and looking at her. "We never grieved. I never let you grieve and I'm sorry. I was selfish."

Every time she had started crying before, Steve would just hold her and tell her he was going to fix it. They'd find a way. They could save Bucky, somehow or someway if they just tried hard enough. Edith knew better, but Steve was so fucking stubborn he would just resist, and resist, and resist.

She chokes on an embarrassing sob and covers her face with her hands. She feels his hand touch her knee lightly, and when she doesn't resist he runs his thumb across it gently. 

"I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I need to see this through. But…" she hears him take a deep breath "This is my last shot. You're right, I need to think about what I already have."

She tangles her hands in her own hair, groaning. She remembers when they first started dating, their mantra, 'No Guarantees'. They can't make promises while their work involves playing on a proverbial roulette wheel with a thousand ways to die. "You say that, Steve, but you can't make that promise. If something else convinces you you can fix the world again nothing is going to stop you from running off and trying to make it work." 

The hand leaves her knee, and she hears him stand. "Come with me." He says, and she feels that same hand on her arm, urging her upward. 

"Where?"

"Inside. I just- I need to show you something." He squeezes the arm lightly and she looks up at him, sight blurring. She gets up, shaky, and follows him through the metal double doors and into the facility, past the gym, the mess hall, and the several labs and conference rooms between the hangar and the massive shared office he and Natasha use to run literally everything to do with the Avengers. 

He pulls her over to the sofa, shoving a stack of books to the side and gently pushing her to sit.

She grabs a Kleenex box from a nearby end table, wiping at her eyes as he steps away to his desk, and starts digging around in a filing cabinet.

The room is a mess. Books and papers are everywhere, and they've obviously been eating here and not in the mess. Mostly takeout, if the stack of pizza boxes and foam clamshells is anything to judge by. There's a dart board behind Natasha's desk that is currently serving as a memo pad, covered in papers held there by darts and knives alike. Steve's computer monitor is wearing a halo of sticky notes and is hosting another pot of coffee and a box of doughnuts. 

It looks like they've been living in here, and not well. 

"You need to clean." She says, absently.

"Yeah." Steve says. "I've been distracted." He opens another drawer and seems to reach all the way to the back of the thing, palming around for something behind the folders. 

There's a brief scuffle as he finds whatever he's looking for and pulls it roughly out of the uncooperative cabinet, she can't see whatever it is from where she's sitting. "Close your eyes." He says, and she makes a face.

"Why?"

"God, Edie. I'm not gonna do anything strange. Close your eyes." 

She sighs and does as he asks. "I'm sitting in your filthy fucking office, mad as shit at you, with my eyes closed." She says. "This is already strange."

She hears him walk over, and there's a shuffling and a squeak of a shoe on the tile floor, and one of his hands takes hers, brushing her sore knuckles lightly with his thumb. 

"Keep your eyes closed for a second or I'm gonna mess this up." He says and she sighs again, using her un-grabbed hand to signal him to get a move on with whatever this is. 

"So… I know things have been rough. We keep getting kicked in the teeth over and over and I've been so busy trying to think of ways to fix it that I've been a real jerk to you." He squeezes her hand, taking a deep breath. "I shouldn't have put everything we've lost over everything we have, but the truth is that I've been afraid to think about what that means." There's a soft click of something opening before he continues. "Edith, I love you, and I know you said we can't make promises and that nothing can keep me from running off but…. Well."

There's a pause. 

"You can, uh… you can open your eyes."

Edith does, and then immediately shoots to her feet. 

"What the fuck is that?!"

"You hate it?"

"Steve.  _ Steve _ ." Her knees go weak, even the artificial one, which is unlikely but here she is, sitting back down and staring.  _ Staring _ at the  _ thing _ in Steve's hand in complete shock. "What the hell are you asking me?"

"Was I- was that not obvious?" He looks at her, and at the open black box sitting in his palm with the- the-

"A ring?!"

"I know we've never been particularly traditional. I wanted to wait, in case we got Bucky back because I don't think it's legal for three people to marry each other and, well I thought maybe it would be weird. But today I just thought… If I can just show you…" he takes another breath. "I want to make this promise to you. If you'll let me."

She looks at the ring, it's immaculate brushed silver with a chip of diamond set flat against the band. Simple, and a little old from the subtle wearing around the edges. She has a hunch she knows where he got it. "Did this belong to your mother?"

He nods. "She told me she wanted me to have it before she passed. People used to… well If I hadn't taken it from her in the hospital I probably never would have seen it again. It was in my old things when I came out of the ice."

"It's beautiful." Edith says, quiet, and she means it. "But… are you sure?"

He nods. Swallows. "I know this doesn't fix us, but you need to know I'm in this for good." 

She exhales, shaking, and then leans forward to slither her arms around his neck and drop her forehead against his shoulder. "Okay." She says.

"Okay?" He repeats, sounding confused and slightly high pitched. "Is that a yes?"

"It's a yes." Its muffled against his neck. "But don't you ever walk out on me again Captain Rogers or I will make boot camp look like a spa day." 

He gives her a relieved laugh, his arms coming around her midsection and squeezing tight. 

"Ma'am, yes ma'am"


	7. Mise en Scène

Money changes hands so fast she isn't sure what she's seeing at first, but the pointed looks at her ring-bedecked finger are hard to miss. 

She forgets sometimes that her team consists of a bunch of fishwives. Heavily armed and aggressive fishwives. 

The Big Metal Dick, as they've all come to call it, is currently living on top of a worktable in their garage, along with a handful of other tech waiting for research. Edith isn't sure what she has here, or whether it was worth the trouble her and Wade went through to get it, but her own investigation turns up no more than her field scan had. Rare metals and weird, low-level radiation. Safe enough that she's not concerned about its proximity to their cobbled together gym, and can ignore it entirely while she's zoned out on the treadmill.

"Would be real fuckin' handy if your buddy with all the PhDs could look at this." Frank says, giving the thing a wide berth. "They still screwin' around with all that back to the future shit?" 

She snorts, Edith has been out of the loop for the better part of a month and she's not complaining. "Probably. Steve's said something about them running tests this week. Bruce said we could bring the Dick by on Thursday though." 

"Long weekend for you, huh? Just make sure you get something done that isn't the Captain while you're there." 

She tosses her water bottle at him, watching it collide ineffectually with his shoulder and fall to the ground with a plasticky thump. Frank raises an eyebrow. 

"You're in a good mood."

She realises she's smiling. "I guess I am." She says, slowing the treadmill down from a jog to a walk. "Maybe all this time I just needed some buff white boy to put a ring on it." 

He chuckles "Yeah, worked with Maria too." He picks up the water bottle and puts it back in the cradle, heading for the weight rack. "I don't think I've ever seen a girl smile as much as she did when I asked her, 'cept when we had the kids."

Frank rarely talks about his family, gone for almost a decade and they're still a hole in his heart. The whole reason he does what he does. Edith remembers when he'd shove the other jarheads out of the way after a mission to get to the phone first. She and Wade used to give him their phone time so he could talk to them just a bit longer while they were on base. 

"I bet you looked like a fucking gorilla in your tux." She teases. "What are you, an eighty in the chest?" 

"I wore my dress uniform." He says, loading the bar, "Cheaper than renting one of those monkey suits." 

"Got any pictures?"

He pauses, and she worries she's hit a nerve for a second before he nods. "Yeah. Haven't looked at 'em in a while though. Put all of that stuff in storage." 

She understands. She has one good picture of Bucky that Shuri took while they were in Wakanda. He's dressed in a loose black shirt, his hair tied back from his face, with a lopsided smile directed somewhere off camera. Edith remembers the day it was taken, watching him chase the local kids around from the shaded awning of their porch. Shuri had been running tests on her all day and they'd finally taken a break when she snapped the picture. 

Looking at it hurts. She thinks it will still hurt after another five years. 

They lapse into silence, Edith finishing her cooldown and getting back to a resting heart rate, Frank doing deadlifts like he's getting paid for it. She's wiping down the machine with lysol by the time he speaks up again.

"Wilson was pretty worried about your head." 

She chuckles "Yeah, he made that pretty clear."

"Jess is worried too." Frank says. "And me. You know I don't like getting up 'n peoples business." 

Edith raises an eyebrow. "Are you going somewhere with this?"

Frank sets the weight down, stretching his arm out behind his head. "I suck at this snuggly rainbow bullshit. Just want you to know that I got you, okay? 'N I don't want you droppin' off the fuckin' radar like you did after Ramsay."

For Frank, this is practically a love letter. He doesn't like to wax poetic or get wordy with his feelings, he expresses himself as concisely as possible most of the time, he manages to make even his 'snuggly rainbow bullshit' sound like it's coming out of a grizzly bear. 

Edith smiles, walking up to him. She briefly entertains the idea of punching him, as would be characteristic of their friendship, but she decides that this is a special occasion.

She wraps her arms around his too-wide body and squeezes aggressively. "You're a goddamned softie under all this macho meathead bullshit," She says "and I appreciate the shit out of you."

He yanks on her braid, but not after giving her back a gentle pat. "Yeah, yeah. Lay off, Jack. We got reputations to keep." 

* * *

Steve walks into the office at nine in the morning to find everyone gathered around Natasha's computer, laughing hysterically.

He makes eye contact with her and  _ knows _ .

"You recorded it."

Everyone's too busy laughing to confirm. Clint is practically on the floor. Thor is choking on either rum or his own spit. Bruce actually looks pink under all the green. 

Natasha's shoulders are shaking, and for her that might as well be a guffaw. 

"I don't think I've ever seen-" Rhodey is wiping tears from his face "A woman  _ physically recoil _ from an engagement ring." 

Steve sighs, hanging his head in defeat, and drops into the chair behind his desk. "She still said yes." 

"Thank God for small miracles." Natasha says "My money was on her kicking your ass around a little more before you got out of the doghouse."

Bruce, still recovering, crosses the office to lay an enormous hand on Steve's shoulder. 

"Congrats, Cap. Despite the circumstances we're all actually really happy for you." 

"Though also for your suffering." Thor laughs, "Truly, your face was just-" 

"' _ What the fuck is that?!' _ " Clint mimics in falsetto, and the room devolves into peals of laughter once again. 

Steve thinks he should have had FRIDAY turn off the cameras. Hindsight is twenty twenty, he supposes, and they haven't laughed together like this in a very, very long time. Not since before Ultron, he thinks, before they started losing people and getting wrapped up in the politics of their own existence. 

"So, do you have a date?" Natasha says, like she hadn't just exposed one of the most awkward moments of his life.

He shakes his head, "We didn't really discuss… The mission right now kinda takes precedence." He waves at the mess of holograms and paperwork as evidence.

"Uh huh." Rhodey, still smirking, raises a dubious eyebrow. "Edie doesn't seem like the type to be into all the fluff, but I've also never met a woman who didn't have a secret wedding pinterest board."

"Pinterest?" Steve asks.

"Oh, she has one." Natasha says, and starts typing "Hold on."

Steve, feeling curious, moves over behind Natasha, and sees an open webpage covered in blocks of images under labels like 'Food', 'Life Drawing' 'Art' 'Gun Porn' and, next to an image of a greyed out padlock 'Pipe Dream House' and 'Weddings'

"Do I want to know how you got her password?" 

"It's her last name backwards and collated with her birth year." Natasha shrugs, clicking the wedding headline "Wasn't hard."

The page changes to another series of images, much larger and spanning past the bottom edge of the screen. Black, white, and gold dinnerware is arrayed across dark wood, deep red roses and purple thistles are interspersed with sprigs of fresh ivy and baby's breath, there's an image, too, of a shoulder baring dress in deep plum coloured lace that puddles on the floor around the model's feet.

Edith would look fantastic in that dress.

A hand gently pushes his jaw closed. He hadn't known he'd opened his mouth, but Natasha, as usual, is saving him from himself.

"All women do this?" He says, sounding probably about as overwhelmed as he now feels. 

"Most women do this." Clint confirms. "L- Laura... Laura had one." 

Clint is frowning now, mood shifted at the memory. Clint has lost more than most, a wife and kids that he had done everything in his power to keep safe. Steve doesn't blame him for going rogue, he thinks he would do the same in that position.

Bruce leans over Natasha and types something into the search bar, clicks around, and another wedding board comes up.

"I have one." He says, sounding almost proud. 

Clint's smile returns, and he shakes his head. "Nat, did you know about this when you started dating him?"

"I didn't know about this until now!" She seems genuinely surprised. "Is that…? Aww, do I have a gun on my own wedding topper? And a thigh holster?" 

"Come, friends, how do I make these?" Thor leans down to examine the screen. "I would like a very large cake. With hammers painted on it."

Steve shakes his head. For all the modern world has given him, the internet, fast food, machines that talk back to him, he knows that this insane little family is his favourite thing about it.

* * *

Edith takes up residence in Steve's room on Thursday afternoon after a brief kiss hello and a promise that he will "absolutely, for sure" be able to get away from the team in time for dinner. By three o'clock, she's ignoring the commotion around the facility and snagging the blackest cup of coffee she can manage before retreating to Steve's room again, sparing a glance at the hefty textbook on her bedside table in favour of checking apartment listings in the area.

The new facility is fine for a temporary stay; Steve has a private bedroom and bathroom, but she'd thought she'd given up communal living when she left the army. Between HQ and the firehouse she's started to miss having her own refrigerator and a coffee pot she doesn't have to constantly replace. 

She falls down the real-estate rabbit hole, and stays there until Steve walks in carrying something that makes her eyebrows raise.

"You got your shield back?"

The disc is shiny and the leather buckles have been repaired and replaced in spots, but otherwise it's identical to the one she remembers. The red white and blue showing only a few scratches from use.

"Tony's on board. He had a breakthrough or something and he's helping Bruce. He gave me this back…" Steve tilts the shield in her direction slightly, passing a hand over the painted vibranium like shaking hands with an old friend. Edith didn't think he'd ever see it again either, and hadn't been so confident in ever seeing Tony after everything that had happened between them..

If anyone in this place was going to figure out time travel though…

Steve rests the shield on his dresser, standing in the center of it and leaning slightly against the wall like a decorative mirror. It doesn't belong there, sticking out like a stubborn nail on a wood plank, but she supposes there's not much need for it until he has to run off and do his Avenging.

She feels an inexplicable need to nag him into putting it with their armor and her small collection of guns kept here for that same purpose.

Instead she shakes her head, tapping the hard cover of her textbook with a knuckle"Guess I don't need to keep reading this thing after all,"

And, likely, Bruce is going to have even less time to work on their little project. She doesn't say as much though, the guy was doing her a favour after all the least she could do was be patient about it.

She would just have to stay off the front lines until they figured it out, and avoid places like hospitals or MMA matches, and pray that none of her extremely volatile circle of friends bleeds near her. 

She doubts Bruce has any books she can read on that particular walnut, but she figures it might be worth asking anyway.

Steve is still staring at the shield like he's seen a ghost, so when she hops out of bed with the book and throws on a pair of ratty sneakers he's almost startled.

"I need to give this back to Bruce." She says. "Come with me?"

It's enough to dig him out of his own head, and he snags her hand in response, letting her pull him into the hallway and down the corridor all the way to the hangar. 

The place is abuzz with every available Avenger, rushing about to do whatever the scientists are directing them to do with computers being moved and sheets of metal being pulled off the back of a truck and laid in a neat pile off to the corner. The van is hooked up to a series of cables she couldn't hope to untangle, parked close to the rapidly developing new home for their servers. 

The raccoon brushes past her with an armful of wires over his shoulder and bumps her prosthetic leg.

She looks down at him, still extremely confused by the existence of a talking raccoon. His pointed nose sniffs up at her.

"How much for the leg?" He asks.

"Uh…" She replies.

"Rocket, don't be rude." Steve sighs at the creature and pulls her away as Rocket starts muttering something that sounds suspiciously like he's plotting larceny. 

She spots Bruce amongst the computers and waves the book at him, and he smiles. "I was about to come ask you for that!"

"I marked off every part that mentioned quantum interactions. Felt like I was in highschool again." She says, passing the thing to him with its halo of sticky tabs and post its. 

"That's going to save me a lot of work right now. Tony has a theory that we need some kind of target to make sure we can jump back here once we've found the stones. We can use the stones themselves to hop out but hopping back in is a bit more complicated." He thumbs through her tabs as gently as he can with his enormous hands, and she can only imagine what she would look like having to do the same with raptor-like claws. 

"I was hoping you had something I could borrow about the other thing?"

"The you turning into a cannibalistic beast-monster 'thing'?" Tony rolls himself from under the van, dressed in a linen shirt and suit pants that are probably worth more than a year's pay at her old job. 

"That." She says, frowning. "I know it's a long shot. I just realized that until I get this figured out I'm going to be stuck desk jockeying."

Steve is giving her a look of concern that she catches out of the corner of her eye, and she lets her knuckles brush his in an attempt to keep him from asking. 

"Nothing here that isn't Hulk and Gamma ray centric. Sorry Edie." Bruce places the book with a tab open on top of one of the consoles. "I do have… hold on." He turns and digs through a box, gently putting aside a few of the books before brandishing one smaller novel and passing it to her.

"Kafka?" She asks. The blue and black beetle on the front sits above the author's name and beneath the title " _ Metamorphosis _ ".

"It helped me make sense of this whole thing. The interpretive notes in the back half of the book especially."

She doesn't want to make sense of it so much as she wants to get rid of it. She wants her body back. But Bruce is helping how he can right now and if he thinks this could at least keep her level for now she's not about to look a gift Hulk in the mouth. 

So she thanks him and tucks the book under her arm.

For now, it's enough.


	8. Serendipity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:  
> Rants about Kafka  
> EMOTIONS  
> Smut.  
> MORE EMOTIONS.

It's Sunday, and Edith hates Kafka.

She now remembers reading  _ Metamorphosis _ in highschool and being just as unimpressed then. The protagonist refuses to do anything about his situation, waffling between humanity and insect-hood and rejecting the help his family attempts to provide. His sister is so far up her own ass that partway through the story she decides she's too concerned with her marital prospects to give a fuck about the fact that her brother has become a  _ literal cockroach _ . 

Edith doesn't bother with the annotations. By midnight she's so done with the book that she might actually throw up if she has to read any more. 

Instead, she takes herself down to the gym and takes out her frustration on a punching bag.

She doesn't understand complacency. The main character of  _ Metamorphosis _ , Gregor, assumes he will eventually become human again but does nothing to make it happen. He spends his days eating rotting food and skittering over the walls of his bedroom and just assuming that things will change. 

In the end, along with his dependence on his indifferent family, his inaction costs him his life. The book leaves Edith with more frustration than answers. Beating the punching bag is, at least, straightforward.

She can almost zone out once she gets into a rhythm, she needs to concentrate enough to control her blows; too soft and she won't do any damage, too hard and she'll hurt her own fists. Sticking to the mid ground means she feels the punch all the way up into her shoulder like a tremor, and it's that sensation that she focuses on until everything else falls away.

She wishes she had this much control when faced with the smell of blood. Since going feral that first time she's tried so hard to find a cure, or a way to resist the transformation. The most control she'd ever felt was when she'd had Thanos' forces to focus her rage on, the urge to protect her own had been keen when she'd transformed, and she can still remember the taste of alien blood on her tongue if she focuses hard enough.

There's a noise behind her and she punches the bag just on the painful side of hard before she takes a breath and turns.

"Sorry." Steve says. "You weren't in bed so I assumed…"

Edith sighs. Steve's scarred up arm is always a reminder of just how little control she has. The only scar his flesh carries and it's her fault.

She wonders how he can look at her sometimes.

"Just taking some time to think." She says. "Anything new happen?"

Steve walks over and braces the bag, tacit permission for her to continue her exercise. She doesn't have to compensate so much for the swing this time and is able to focus on him while he speaks.

"Yeah actually. Your weird radiating phallus turned out to be just what Tony and Bruce needed for some kind of beacon?"

"Huh." She jabs, one, two, and the vibrations come back to that middle point just on the edge of pain. "Convenient for them. Glad I could help."

Steve always overcompensates for her hits, used to bracing against people who can hit harder and faster than she can. He eases up once she finds her rhythm. "Apparently without using the radiation from our timeline's stones we would have been… well, Tony said the word  _ 'Roadkill' _ but Bruce said that wasn't entirely accurate. The BMD should work, though. Maybe."

"This isn't making me less nervous about leaving tomorrow you know."

"I told them I had to be back for dinner on Friday or you would find me and kill me."

Edith, again, hits a bit too hard. She knows he's joking but she's come close enough once. She doesn't like to think about it.

"Sorry." She says. "I won't find much if you're spontaneously atomized though."

"Is that a possibility?" He asks, and she pauses to shrug, then steps away from the bag. 

He does too, and she takes the opportunity to wrap her arms around his middle and rest her head on his chest. "When's Go-Time?" She asks, muffled against his shirt. He smells like sweat and cedar; but not unpleasant. 

His arms hold her close, almost cocooning her in their warmth. His voice sounds deeper so close to the source.

"Tuesday or Wednesday depending on how the test with Clint goes." 

She won't be here. If something goes wrong she won't know until her phone doesn't ring.

"Call me as soon as you're back." She says.

"Does that mean you believe it'll work?"

She sighs again. She doesn't know what she believes. She just wants Steve back safe so she can start planning for some kind of future with him in it. The ring, currently hanging with her dog tags around her neck, was a promise; but a promise made wasn't always kept in her experience. Messing with the laws of physics didn't sound like a safe bet, even if they could make it back. 

"I don't know." She says. 

What goes unsaid, is that if this does work it won't be just the two of them anymore. Will Bucky even like who they've become after five years of grieving? Would he understand that she'd tried to move on even when Steve didn't? 

"I promise," Steve says "That I'll do everything I can to get back to you." 

She nods against his chest, and squeezes him tight. "You better."

* * *

Everybody is gathered around Clint as he recounts his experimental trip back to twenty-eighteen while sobbing, openly, into Nat's arms, trying to answer Bruce's gentle questions and repeating himself:

"They were there! They were alive! It worked!"

It worked. Somehow. Steve doesn't know all the science behind it, he's always been more of an art geek than the other kind, but he knows that Clint managed to go back in time and return without being reduced to dust and now? Now the mission can really begin.

Tomorrow, they decide. They've waited long enough.

He doesn't think he's going to be able to sleep. His heart feels like it's pounding it's way out of his chest and he's forcing himself to take deep, steadying breaths. He has to call Edie.

His phone is in his hand and he dials, and as soon as the tone stops he speaks, not waiting for a hello.

"It worked." He says and thinks she didn't hear him for the silence that follows.

There's a gust of air over the receiver. "Well. Shit." 

He laughs. He can't help it coming out slightly manic. "I can barely believe it either."

Another pause. A few aborted words that crack in his ear. 

"I'm not sure if I'm impressed or terrified. Both? Steve, please be careful. I don't know what I'll do if I lose you too."

"I'll be back." He wishes he could promise, "I have a girl to marry, don't I?"

Another huff of air, a poorly concealed sniffle. "Maybe a boy too if this works out… and if he, y'know, accepts."

"Is that even legal?"

"No. But I'm pretty sure they'd make an exception." She laughs. "You've saved the world enough times." 

"Wish I'd done it the time that mattered." He says softly.

Edith makes quiet noise of agreement. "You're fixing it now. I'm sorry I didn't believe you could…"

"I wouldn't have either." He replies. "God, you had every right to not believe any of this. Somehow we keep ending up in these impossible situations and all I want to do is just… Retire. Go buy a house somewhere quiet and spend the rest of our days living off my army back-pay and loving each other up."

She laughs again, a bit clearer. "I will happily spend every day for the rest of our lives painting and fucking." She says. 

It's a pretty picture. One that's almost in reach. This time tomorrow he could make it happen. Steve doesn't spend his money on much, and he could buy a decent house out of pocket with his army pay alone. The money he made back when the team was still together was spent mostly on what clothes he needed and his weekly pizza and beer night with Edie. 

They could spend their days like that, doing things they loved and wrapped up in each other and Bucky…

He wouldn't have believed that would be something he'd want for himself if someone had asked him even a few years ago. Now? 

He can't think of a life he'd rather live.

"I wish I could touch you right now." She says, voice low "I'd show you how happy you make me, how proud I am of you."

Steve, sitting on the bed now, smiles. "I wish that you were here so I could make all these promises to you in person."

She chuckles huskily. "Carnally, I hope."

"If that's how you'd want them." He replies, and means it. Edith can be extremely tactile when she's in the mood and if she asked him to kiss every one of those dreams into her skin he would. 

"I'd make you promise to spend more time naked." He can hear her smile through the phone. "Give me more opportunities to show my appreciation."

"I do like it when you ah…  _ show your appreciation _ ."

She hums. "You're fun to go down on, gorgeous. So sensitive." 

His cock seems to agree with the assessment, twitching in his jeans. 

"Not to sound corny…" he says, "But, what are you wearing?"

She sighs a laugh. "Your VA shirt and pink briefs." 

She keeps stealing that shirt. Soft grey cotton that falls to her thighs and leaves only the barest curve of her ass visible when she bends over.

He's not sure how many times he's had sex with her while she's been wearing that shirt and nothing else. More than ten, he thinks. It's a frequent enough occurrence. 

"It still smells like you." She continues. "I stole it out of your laundry on Sunday. I knew I'd be missing you and you always smell so good…" 

"Sometimes when you're gone I'll smell the body wash you leave here." He says. "Is that weird?"

"Extremely. But so is stealing dirty laundry to huff while I fuck myself." 

Steve still blushes when she's this graphic, but only because it turns him on and he's not sure how he should feel about that. Maybe he's just a soft touch.

"I want the real thing, though." He says, palming himself through his jeans. "Even if the sheets still smell like you. It's not the same as being able to touch, as seeing how big my hands look on your hips."

She groans softly, and he can picture her laying in her metal-framed bed with her thighs spread apart for him. It's that thought that has him pulling free from his pants and gently stroking his hardness with his free hand.

"My fingers aren't nearly enough." She breathes. "You always fill me up so good. You've ruined me." 

His hand isn't hot or slick enough to mimic her either, but there's some relief while he's sliding through a closed fist. "If you were here I'd… I would fuck you however you wanted. I just want to feel you."

"I want to ride you, get on top and work you over." She sounds breathless, like she's doing exactly what she's describing, and the sound of her voice makes him moan in response, throbbing in his own hand.

"I want to kiss you all over while you ride me. I want to leave marks on you, squeeze your hips until my hands leave bruises…"

"I want that too. I want to feel those bruises the next day." She keens, and Steve feels that slow boil start at the base of his spine. 

"I'm close. I wish I could cum inside you"

"I want you to, Steve I want you to fill me with your cum until it's dripping down my thighs." She moans "I'm close too. Fuck."

They both lapse into panting and groans until his name rings out from her end of the line, followed by a growl of pleasure that shoots straight through him. 

"Fuck. Edie, I want you." He breathes and he falls off that edge, his cock twitching in his hand as he cums in several short spurts that stain his teeshirt in white.

There's a silence punctuated by laboured breathing as they both recover. 

"You" she swallows "better come back alive." She says.

"For you?" He replies. "Anything."

* * *

Edith doesn't sleep the next night night, too wound up and nervous to drift off, so instead she wanders aimlessly around the garage alternately exercising and working on repairing her still-busted helmet. 

Really, she should bring this to Tony, but he's busy right now. 

Saving the world. 

With the love of her life. 

Fuck. This is exactly what she's trying to distract herself from. 

She drops her head to the metal surface. This close It smells like solder and lysol, but the cool sensation feels pleasant against her skin so she stays there for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

Steve will be back. With the stones. He'll bring back Bucky and they'll all move to a mansion in the Hamptons and live happily ever after. Hopefully. Maybe. 

God, she's sweating she's so nervous. So many things could go wrong and turn Steve into temporal roadkill. Or the plans could all go wrong and kill him and his team in some other horrible way. 

She feels something like static buzz across the back of her neck and briefly thinks that she might have shorted something in her helmet, and then, upon inspection, sees the reflection of sparks behind her.

She turns in time to see Doctor Steven Strange step through a wheel of light into her garage.

"What the fuck?" She says.

"Charming." He replies, "The Captain needs you. Thanos is back." He says. 

"What?!" She's on her feet, already stalking to her locker and grabbing her armor. She needs a gas mask or something to help filter the smell of blood. She thinks Frank probably has one. She needs to call the team.

"Get dressed. I'll be back in three minutes." Strange says and then steps back through the spinning static before the wheel collapses into nothingness. 

Edith stares at the empty space for far too long, her mind racing. 

"Fuck."


	9. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm the worst at endings. 
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me.
> 
> Next up is the wedding fic none of us knew we wanted. I may or may not be preparing by watching a whole bunch of Say Yes to the Dress...

He's only ever been this sore and drowsy when coming out of the ice. Disoriented, and like his limbs are all made of lead that weighs him down against warm soil, he realizes something isn't right based on the temperature alone. Normally it takes hours for him to warm up again but he feels uncomfortably hot now, like he's laying under the sun at noon. It doesn't help that the rough grain of sandy soil is scratching against his bare face. 

It reminds him of kissing Steve when he'd had that day-old stubble. 

Definitely not the ice, then. 

He manages to crack open an eye and he's surrounded by trees and leaf litter, the smell of mossy earth. He remembers fighting, and Jack going feral next to him, ripping apart aliens with extreme prejudice. They were separated until the battle seemed to wane, and he'd had this horrible, nauseous feeling…

He died. 

He'd seen Steve's look of horror when he realized, the rage on Jack's feral face as his body seemed to fall away into nothing.

They'd lost, but where is he now? 

At length, he forces himself to sit, and then stand, grunting with the effort as he tries to recenter himself. He's still in Wakanda, but he can't hear the sounds of battle nearby or see anyone wandering through the copse of trees he's in. He's still wearing the same armor, and when he checks, his guns are still on his hips and loaded. 

He hears footsteps, spots a red and silver silhouette nearby. "Sam?!"

He turns, seeing him and picking her way quickly through the bush to meet him in the little clearing he's found himself in. "What happened?"

"I think we lost." Bucky says.

"How the hell are we still here, then?" Sam is incredulous. He looks around the clearing, searching for other… survivors? Bucky hopes not. He's not sure how he'll cope if he's without Jack and Steve again. 

But no, something in him says that they're the ones who disappeared, though he's still not clear on how they're back.

The answer comes in the form of a vortex of sparks and a man stepping through them who looks like Stark's kid dressed like a wizard. 

Bucky has his guns in hand before the man is even fully on solid ground. The guy has his hands up in a placating gesture but Bucky isn't taking any chances. 

"Who the hell are you?" Sam asks, having the same idea.

"Doctor Steven Strange." He says, like he's had to explain this a hundred times today already. "We've been dead for five years. Thanos is back. The captain needs our help." He waves his ringed right hand and another spinning wheel of sparks opens. "This portal will take you to the army. We will be attacking shortly." 

Sam looks at Bucky, who keeps one eye on Strange while examining the "portal". He can see a field on the other side with people milling about, and his eyes immediately go to the charcoal silhouette he recognizes by wrote.

"Jack died too?" How must Steve had felt? He would have been crushed.

"I assume you mean the Lieutenant." Strange says "No. It was just convenient to bring her team to the rest of the army before we came through."

Thank god. They'd had each other, at least. Being alone could have broken either one of them. 

"This is so weird." Sam says, but steps to the portal anyway. He passes through, turning around and shrugging at Bucky.

Bucky looks back to Strange, the man looks annoyed. 

Fuck it.

* * *

The noise is intense, she managed to get Wade, Jess and Frank together and ready for some "World Saving Bullshit." Fast enough that when Doc Strange came back through to the garage he seemed genuinely surprised. 

"We work in a firehouse, dude." Jess had said. 

"I just… I didn't see this." He says, and it's so cryptic that the entire team looks to Edith for clarity before stepping through a circle of static into the throng of Wakandan soldiers, Asgardian knights, and the mess of other allies waiting to descend on Thanos' second attempt at wiping them out.

"This is insane." Frank says at the same time Wade sees and starts yelling at the flying horse that's appeared overhead.

"So this is what you do when you're not with us?" Jess nudges Edith and she snorts.

"Not generally. Usually it's a lot quieter." Another portal opens nearby, and Edith watches Wanda step through, close enough that she can see the red around her eyes.

For some of these people it hasn't been five years, their friends and loved ones have only just died. Edith can only imagine what kind of mind-fuck that must feel like. Wanda is grieving Vision like the newly bereaved.

"Everyone is going to need therapy when this is over." She mumbles.

"Thinking of switching careers?" Frank jokes. 

Maybe. Edith doesn't want to fight anymore. This is it, she thinks. She wants out and maybe she could do some kind of good in the process.

Ignoring that for now, she turns to her team. "Okay. Business. Wade I want you on point ; hot zones where you can do the most damage. Jess, stick to Frank and keep the creeps off him while he's shooting. I'll be looking for the highest place with the best view and try to assist. If this is anything like last time we're looking at a slog, so fall back and breathe if you need to. No dying. I'm paying for drinks after." She says, and takes a deep breath. "And I'm gonna need you guys for my bridal party."

"You fuckin' sap." Frank snorts. Wade squeals in delight, and Jess just smirks. 

"Nobody else I'd rather smash heads with." Edith says. "So don't fucking die." 

Wade hugs her. He's the only hugger out of them but a second passes and she feels two more sets of arms wrap around her. 

She loves these people. Her crew. Her friends. She honestly isn't sure what she would do without them. 

"I feel like I'm interrupting something." Says a familiar voice, and she pulls away to the sight of Bucky, arms crossed and grinning lopsidedly at her in a way that she's missed so, so much. 

She pulls away from her friends, staring open-mouthed at him as a few abortive noises crackle out from her.

"Cat got your tongue, doll?"

She laughs, sounding manic, and all but launches herself at him, armor so heavy it takes them both to the ground where she wraps her arms around him and tangles their legs together like she's trying to tether him down; trying to keep him here. 

She kisses his smiling face, hard and messy and his hands tangle in the loose parts of her hair. Edith's own hands are busy making sure he's a real, solid, thing and her eyes aren't tricking her. She can hear her heart pounding in her ears, drumming with relief at having half of itself back again.

"You're here!" She says between frantic kisses. "It worked!" 

"Still not clear on the details." Bucky says. "You're gonna have to catch me up when this is over." 

"Anything you want, Sarge." She says.

There's a series of throat clearings and a wolf whistle that reminds her that they're far from alone. She stands again, glaring at her team and pulling Bucky up. When he's standing, she doesn't release his hand.

"Buck, this is my team. Frank Castle, Wade Wilson, and Jessica Jones. We've been keeping things in New York from getting out of hand since… everything." She gestures at the surrounding chaos. "Team, you've heard about James Barnes."

"We're also her bridal party." Wade says "I'm going to fight these two for maid of honour."

Bucky gives her a look and she shakes her head. "I'll tell you after." 

"Stevie decide to make an honest woman out of you?" He says, smile going tense. She smiles back and kisses him again, heedless of the onlookers. 

"We talked about how many laws we'd be allowed to break given our world-saving track record. We think a three-way marriage is an acceptable request… If you want in on this mess."

His grin turns beaming and he pulls her close again.

"You two idiots are the only two people I've ever wanted anything with." He laughs "Of course I want in!"

There's a distant sound of a horn blowing, then more in disparate tones joining in all over the field. Edith pulls away from Bucky, squeezing his hands one final time. The glow of portals beginning to open draws them all forward, battle cries rising up over the assembly like a dissonant echo, terrifying in its beauty. 

This is it. If she's lucky, this will be her last fight before the sweet release of retirement. She affixes her gas mask and goggles, a meager replacement for her helmet, and looks to her team, her friends, her Bucky.

"None of you fucks better die." She says to the cluster of people she cares for more than almost anyone else. "Let's go crack some skulls."

* * *

The din of battle makes it easy for her to sneak up the side of the crumbling HQ, onto a relatively covered panel of roof with a view of most of the battlefield. The ship hovering above could pose an issue if anyone is watching too closely, but she feels hidden enough to hunker down and start picking off aliens. 

She keeps an eye on her people, Steve toe to toe with Thanos, Bucky keeping distance and firing through walls of invaders with an energy weapon.

She can smell the blood even though the mask. Iron and copper soaking the air around her in a macabre perfume. 

She feels the surge of adrenaline, the sharp ache of her bones as she breathes in the scent, she tries to focus on her next shot, that whipcrack of her rifle as she fires into alien head after alien head. Jess and Frank are surrounded and she can't let them get swamped. She has a job to do. This is it. This battle. Then she can go home with Steve and Bucky and spend the rest of their lives living off the royalties from their memoirs. 

Bucky closes in on Frank and Jess, laying down another round of covering fire, and she sees Wade following the Parker kid as he flees with the gauntlet. Steve is in the most danger, up close with Thanos still and harrying the enemy with a broken shield.

She's already tagged the giant twice and barely scratched him. 

More of the swarm is descending on the three closest to her now, and her shots can only drop so many. 

Her bones screech at her, her muscles bulge. She resists. 

Another headshot and she sees the creature directly behind her victim leap at Bucky, taking him to the blood-soaked dirt with a screech she swears she can hear from her vantage.

Her vision goes red. Rage boiling through her and an urge to protect what's her's. Not like a mindless beast. Edith's heart beats for these people who have stuck with her through the insanity that has been her life these past years. 

She's done with her loved ones being hurt. 

She's done with being afraid.

She stops resisting.

And transforms.

* * *

In the end, Deadpool is the one with the gems, his body burning up horribly from the energy that pours out of them when he wishes away Thanos's army. Tony, nearby, takes enough residual damage that he's burned, but alive, and Steve watches as Wade's body has to reassemble itself from the ashes. 

Across the field, Steve can see familiar faces: Wanda, Sam, Peter, T'challa, all milling about; finding each other and reuniting with their loved ones.

He doesn't see Edith, or Bucky. His heart races. 

He'd seen the telltale sniper fire hit Thanos twice while they'd been fighting. Once across the cheek and once in the join of his shoulder and neck. Edith might have been half a mile away and made those same shots if she was using Bianca, but not being able to spot her or Bucky fills him with a kind of creeping dread.

Moreso when he feels the rumble of sub vocal growling nearby and the sense memory of the last time he heard it sends terror creeping up his spine.

Her helmet had been broken, did Strange still bring her to fight? Did she agree? He breaks into a run, following the sound, cresting a ridge and looking down into a pit left over from the ship's barrage. At the bottom, in the center of a ring of alien bodies, the enlarged and elongated shape of Edith's feral form is resting with a clawed hand wrapped around an unconscious Bucky. 

Steve feels his blood run cold. She'd been afraid of this exact thing happening, and now…

Bucky groans.

She tucks him closer to her body, protectively.

Steve lets out a breath of relief. Bucky is alive and somehow Edith has enough left in her to not attack him. The growling is in response, he sees, to the group of Wakandan soldiers trying to get close enough to take him away.

Steve steps gingerly down the side of the hill, Okoye is amongst the number of Dora Milaje at it's base, inching closer. 

"Captain." She says. "Your girlfriend is preventing us from seeing to the injured." 

He notices, then, the other two figures wrapped close to her chest. Frank is semi-conscious and holding onto Jess, who looks exasperated at the whole situation. 

"Would be nice to get these bullet holes looked at." Jess says. "I know you think we're your kittens or something, Eids, but I already have mom." 

Edith hisses.

"I'll see what I can do." Steve says, and passes the spearwomen, stepping as close as he can without coming in range of meathook claws and poisoned teeth. 

"Sweetheart?" He tries and the huge head swings toward him, eyes yellow and slitted. Her face is elongated, almost snout-like with ears gone to a point, twitching in his direction. Even her limbs seem digitigrade.

Kittens indeed, he's never bothered to look long enough to realise that her transformed body is so catlike. Even the striations across her skin make him think of a tiger, curving around her eyes like dark makeup. 

"We need to get them to a doctor or they'll die." He says, stepping closer, and he's met with another growl, audible this time and rumbling. Different somehow from the previous but still vibrating through his bones. 

"They're safe now, Thanos is dead." He says. Another step closer and she could reach out and kill him. "Wade killed him. You know Wade." 

He takes that last step. If she wanted him dead she could reach out in an instant. He remembers the smell of his own decaying arm so clearly from the time she did…

"Edith" he reaches out, her eyes shifting from slits to ovals as he steps closer again. "Come back to me."

She groans, body stiffening, and stands, letting both Frank and Bucky slump to the ground. A few stumbling steps back and she shivers, collapsing with a hiss. Steve follows as the sound of snapping bones echoes through the crater. 

Her voice changes, shouting in pain as her body returns to normal, jerking with every collapsing muscle and shortening bone. Steve goes to her, holding her head as her skull twitches back into shape and she whimpers.

"It's okay." He says. "You're okay. I'm here."

"Hate this." She grunts and something in her spine cracks and makes her whole body quake. "Did I… Fuck. Did I hurt anyone?" 

"Nobody on our side." He says, gently smoothing her hair away from sweaty skin. He knows, somehow, that she didn't attack any of theirs. The ring of bodies had been entirely alien. 

"Good." She groans. "I feel like I had more control this time." 

"You protected Bucky and your team." He says. "You did good." 

She curls against him as her body is wracked through with another spasm, and Steve cards hid fingers through her hair as he watches a medic check Bucky over. Steve assumes blood loss is keeping him unconscious, given the large wound down the front of his body. 

But Bucky is alive, and otherwise whole. 

And that's enough.

* * *

Steve ends up being dragged into a last mission: a reverse time-heist to return the stones to their respective timelines, and pops back into existence with an exhausted Natasha. 

Edith hands the reigns of the firehouse over to Frank, and reminds him that running the team doesn't excuse him from his duties as her maid of honour. Bucky trails after her like he did when they ran missions, protective, and helps her find them an apartment in Queens to tide them over while they shop for houses north of the city. Eventually, she needs some time to herself, though, and he's content to spend the day with Steve unpacking essentials at the new place.

She comes home to a quiet space, sparsely furnished with what little her and Steve already owned: a couch, chair, and TV, and a few boxes of books and art supplies half opened with sharpied labels. Her easel, the only piece of furniture she's remotely attached to, sits by the window with her most recent experiment drying. The temptation to paint over it is already making her fingers itch, the blue could be more vibrant, the green could have more yellow in it's hue. The composition is too abstract, she thinks, but it had been an experiment anyway. Not something she would ever call done. 

Much like many of the things in her life.

She pads across the hall to the bedroom, finding the door cracked to the sounds of slow breathing.

They have a mattress on the floor, not having bothered with the bed frame yet, and dove grey sheets that are a mess, wound around a pair of bare bodies tangled with each other. Steve's head is resting on Bucky's chest, mimicking the rise and fall of breath as they sleep. Bucky's arm is curled protectively around Steve's shoulders, hand splayed against his back. 

Edith grins, leaning in the doorway and watching for a few moments before divesting herself of everything but her underwear and climbing in alongside her boys.

Bucky cracks an eye, looking down at her as she plasters herself to his opposite side. She places a finger to her lips. Quiet. Steve sleeps so little at the best of times, and she would feel more guilty if it had been him she'd woken.

Bucky just copies his hold on Steve with his metal arm around her narrow shoulders. Warm from the sun streaming into the bedroom and the shared body heat, Edith lets out a slow sigh, happy to be right where she is.

Months ago, she never would have dreamed she could have this. Normal lives were for other people. Napping on a Sunday afternoon with people she loved? Pure fantasy. But here she is, soft and content despite everything that's happened. Her boys are peaceful, relaxed in bed beside her with no looming threat to distract from the simple joy of being.

It's not perfect, she suspects it never will be, but today she can put the bad aside.

Today they're together.

They're home.

END


End file.
